Philosophical and historical background
From the 1870s onward, the ideas that history and civilizationwere inherently progressive and that progress was always good came under increasing attack. Arguments arose that not merely were the values of the artist and those of societydifferent, but that society was antithetical to progress, and could not move forward in its present form. Philosophers called into question the previous optimism.
Two of the most disruptive thinkers of the period were, inbiology, Charles Darwin and, in political science, Karl Marx. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the sense of human uniqueness, which had far-reaching implications in the arts. The notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as "lower animals" proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Marx seemed to present a political version of the same proposition: that problems with the economic order were not transient, the result of specific wrong doers or temporary conditions, but were fundamentally contradictions within the "capitalist" system. Naturalism in the visual arts and literature reflected a largely materialistnotion of human life and society.
Philosophical and historical backgroundFrom the 1870s onward, the ideas that history and civilizationwere inherently progressive and that progress was always good came under increasing attack. Arguments arose that not merely were the values of the artist and those of societydifferent, but that society was antithetical to progress, and could not move forward in its present form. Philosophers called into question the previous optimism.Two of the most disruptive thinkers of the period were, inbiology, Charles Darwin and, in political science, Karl Marx. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the sense of human uniqueness, which had far-reaching implications in the arts. The notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as "lower animals" proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Marx seemed to present a political version of the same proposition: that problems with the economic order were not transient, the result of specific wrong doers or temporary conditions, but were fundamentally contradictions within the "capitalist" system. Naturalism in the visual arts and literature reflected a largely materialistnotion of human life and society.
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